Diversity and "Equity" are each other's enemies... discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP doesn’t understand the definition. Equity doesn’t mean equality. Here is a graphic I use to explain this to 12 year olds. Hope it helps!

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Equality-vs-Equity

This graphic is a cancer

Ok fine. Your kid does not get to watch the game. Too bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

That’s the consequence of poor decision making.

The child has no say in that.

Yep it’s unfortunate. But punishing my kid for the sins of their parents doesn’t fix that problem. Bottom line is that schools can’t fix shitty parents.

Single parent \= “shitty parent”

Especially considering the parent who is the “single parent” is the one who stepped up to the plate.

Agreed, but one of the two parents probably is.

That’s not to say that divorced/unwed parents can’t successfully raise a child to not need equitable measures. It for sure happens.

This. One of the parent is the shitty parent. This is especially true in the poor black communities where many fathers are incarcerated. Those that are not, many abandon their responsibilities to their kid and could care less. I have a good friend in this situation but she is lucky because she has support from her family and they are helping to raise him. These kids have no strong father figures at all.

The single moms with no support are working to support the family so no one is at home watching the kids. They then get into trouble, hang out with the wrong crowd, etc….

The other issue is that some households with 2 parents, they just don’t give a sh’t about the kids and are just unfit to be parents. Ask a teacher in a title 1 school about that and they can easily tell you the percentages and you would be surprised.

Those kids are getting in trouble because police and school administrators are racist. It's not their fault. If you look at arrest and incarceration rates, black males are way overrepresented.

So they are being framed?

NP. There are multiple components to the systemic racism that leads to higher incarceration rates.

Redlining
Lack of generational wealth
Untreated learning disabilities
Harsher consequences at school
Lack of knowledge about education/college
Bias in hiring
Bias in arrests
Harsher sentencing

It’s pretty easy for a kid to make a few mistakes when they are young and then never be able to pull themselves out of that hole.

Where is the personal responsibility?

Generational wealth - shitty parents, a whole bunch of them but realistically, there are tons of normal everyday middle class Americans of all colors without generational wealth.
Untreated learning disabilities - shitty parents
Lack of knowledge about college - shitty parents
Bias in arrests, sentencing - don’t care, stop committing crimes. This isn’t rocket science
Bias in hiring - racist quota systems set up in many institutions now. But remaining bias may also exist because all of the above is true.

So how does removing advanced math/tracking fix any of that? The kids who have bad parents and/or learning disabilities will still get as good an education as the school system is capable of giving. Systemic discrimination of kids with greater learning capabilities seems like a stupid answer to problems created by perceived systemic racism.

That’s not happening.

But go ahead and pretend like systemic racism isn’t happening.

VMPI was all just a dream. thankfully. But the original point of the exchange was that bad parents create bad outcomes, regardless of race. That includes leaving a child to be raised by one parent.

VMPI was never removing advanced math.

Might be tough to be a “good” parent if generations of your ancestors were blocked from becoming “good” parents. People are fundamentally good; everyone wants to be “good” parents. There are just fewer obstacles to being “good” parents for some people.

You are naive if you think VMPI wasn’t removing accelerated paths. I assume you knew as much and are just playing word games.

Nope. Not tough to stay with the mother or father of your child and choose to raise that child because something that happened to your grandparents. Tough to take personal responsibility to do what’s right. I wonder if Va schools are teaching the importance of two parent households, maybe that should be part of the equity model if it isn’t already.

It was not removing accelerated paths. It always included calculus and IB as options which are accelerated paths.

You don’t know what’s in the VA FLA curriculum? You sound like an external agitator. A privileged, racist external agitator.

Yep you don’t know what was happening in elementary schools in FCPS.

I’m surprised it took you this long to call someone racist. Probably held it as long as you could. Do you feel better? Good. I’m not racist or privileged.

And This doesn’t change the fact that people are abandoning their children and equity measures in va schools will not fix this. Personal responsibility, regardless of race, is always an answer.

VMPI wasn’t removing advanced math/accelerated paths.

Interesting that you are self-aware enough to recognize that your comments are racist - and you are ok with that.

VMPI was removing accelerated math paths.

Nope just responding to the accusation above. My comments just point out that abandoning children produces bad outcomes for children, regardless of race. The fundamental difference is where we lay blame on this tragedy. I blame the people abandoning the children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

So focus on the ones who struggle. Then put the kids who already know the material in a separate class. One teacher teaches the advanced kids at their level. Another teacher teaches the struggling kids at their level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

That’s the consequence of poor decision making.

The child has no say in that.

Yep it’s unfortunate. But punishing my kid for the sins of their parents doesn’t fix that problem. Bottom line is that schools can’t fix shitty parents.

Single parent \= “shitty parent”

Especially considering the parent who is the “single parent” is the one who stepped up to the plate.

Agreed, but one of the two parents probably is.

That’s not to say that divorced/unwed parents can’t successfully raise a child to not need equitable measures. It for sure happens.

This. One of the parent is the shitty parent. This is especially true in the poor black communities where many fathers are incarcerated. Those that are not, many abandon their responsibilities to their kid and could care less. I have a good friend in this situation but she is lucky because she has support from her family and they are helping to raise him. These kids have no strong father figures at all.

The single moms with no support are working to support the family so no one is at home watching the kids. They then get into trouble, hang out with the wrong crowd, etc….

The other issue is that some households with 2 parents, they just don’t give a sh’t about the kids and are just unfit to be parents. Ask a teacher in a title 1 school about that and they can easily tell you the percentages and you would be surprised.

Those kids are getting in trouble because police and school administrators are racist. It's not their fault. If you look at arrest and incarceration rates, black males are way overrepresented.

So they are being framed?

NP. There are multiple components to the systemic racism that leads to higher incarceration rates.

Redlining
Lack of generational wealth
Untreated learning disabilities
Harsher consequences at school
Lack of knowledge about education/college
Bias in hiring
Bias in arrests
Harsher sentencing

It’s pretty easy for a kid to make a few mistakes when they are young and then never be able to pull themselves out of that hole.

Where is the personal responsibility?

Generational wealth - shitty parents, a whole bunch of them but realistically, there are tons of normal everyday middle class Americans of all colors without generational wealth.
Untreated learning disabilities - shitty parents
Lack of knowledge about college - shitty parents
Bias in arrests, sentencing - don’t care, stop committing crimes. This isn’t rocket science
Bias in hiring - racist quota systems set up in many institutions now. But remaining bias may also exist because all of the above is true.

So how does removing advanced math/tracking fix any of that? The kids who have bad parents and/or learning disabilities will still get as good an education as the school system is capable of giving. Systemic discrimination of kids with greater learning capabilities seems like a stupid answer to problems created by perceived systemic racism.

That’s not happening.

But go ahead and pretend like systemic racism isn’t happening.

It is with ELA if not with math.

By the way, systemic racism isn't something that actively or consciously ccurs. It is something that is inherently and subconsciously present. Perhaps eliminating honors ELA is counter productive.

It can also be active/conscious - such as redlining.

You're conflating two different things. The historical practice of redlining wasn't systemic racism. It was classic overt and intentional racism. The unintentional secondary and lingering effects of that historical act are what is covered by systemic racism. To whit, overtly and intentially racist housing and mortgage policies from the 50s and 60s led to a structural problem whereby negative consequences became self-propelling even though the overtly racist policies and practices were eliminated. In other words some of the racism became subconsciously embedded in the system. The nuances and subtleties of this distinction are important to understand because the potential remedies for the two issues are different. Subtleties and nuance are two of the things developed in honors ELA. The big irony is that the very concept of systemic racism is something that requires higher level advanced ELA to understand and yet honors ELA is one of the first casualties of the drive to eliminate structural inequality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

What you just explained is *CLASSIC* dumbing down of a classroom. Are you really that obtuse? Having a very low baseline, with no obligation to further advance anyone above that.

The truly gifted and talented will figure it out on their own?! Private school is always an option. What?? I'd like for a politician to say this in a campaign because I know it would go over like a lead balloon.

No- the purpose of public school is to teach each child to the best of its ability. Society benefits from educating the geniuses of the world too. Plenty of geniuses can't afford private school like this pp so callously says. We need smart people to innovate, not just a bunch of barely educated people wandering around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

So focus on the ones who struggle. Then put the kids who already know the material in a separate class. One teacher teaches the advanced kids at their level. Another teacher teaches the struggling kids at their level.

Yes! This is how it used to be done.

I feel like now though, the disruptive kids are a greater burden on the classroom than the struggling kids. Teachers don't mind the slower kids who need extra help. Kids who are throwing things, distracting everyone, and tantruming? It's very difficult to teach and learn with that going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

That’s the consequence of poor decision making.

The child has no say in that.

Yep it’s unfortunate. But punishing my kid for the sins of their parents doesn’t fix that problem. Bottom line is that schools can’t fix shitty parents.

Single parent \= “shitty parent”

Especially considering the parent who is the “single parent” is the one who stepped up to the plate.

Agreed, but one of the two parents probably is.

That’s not to say that divorced/unwed parents can’t successfully raise a child to not need equitable measures. It for sure happens.

This. One of the parent is the shitty parent. This is especially true in the poor black communities where many fathers are incarcerated. Those that are not, many abandon their responsibilities to their kid and could care less. I have a good friend in this situation but she is lucky because she has support from her family and they are helping to raise him. These kids have no strong father figures at all.

The single moms with no support are working to support the family so no one is at home watching the kids. They then get into trouble, hang out with the wrong crowd, etc….

The other issue is that some households with 2 parents, they just don’t give a sh’t about the kids and are just unfit to be parents. Ask a teacher in a title 1 school about that and they can easily tell you the percentages and you would be surprised.

Those kids are getting in trouble because police and school administrators are racist. It's not their fault. If you look at arrest and incarceration rates, black males are way overrepresented.

So they are being framed?

NP. There are multiple components to the systemic racism that leads to higher incarceration rates.

Redlining
Lack of generational wealth
Untreated learning disabilities
Harsher consequences at school
Lack of knowledge about education/college
Bias in hiring
Bias in arrests
Harsher sentencing

It’s pretty easy for a kid to make a few mistakes when they are young and then never be able to pull themselves out of that hole.

Where is the personal responsibility?

Generational wealth - shitty parents, a whole bunch of them but realistically, there are tons of normal everyday middle class Americans of all colors without generational wealth.
Untreated learning disabilities - shitty parents
Lack of knowledge about college - shitty parents
Bias in arrests, sentencing - don’t care, stop committing crimes. This isn’t rocket science
Bias in hiring - racist quota systems set up in many institutions now. But remaining bias may also exist because all of the above is true.

So how does removing advanced math/tracking fix any of that? The kids who have bad parents and/or learning disabilities will still get as good an education as the school system is capable of giving. Systemic discrimination of kids with greater learning capabilities seems like a stupid answer to problems created by perceived systemic racism.

That’s not happening.

But go ahead and pretend like systemic racism isn’t happening.

VMPI was all just a dream. thankfully. But the original point of the exchange was that bad parents create bad outcomes, regardless of race. That includes leaving a child to be raised by one parent.

VMPI was never removing advanced math.

Might be tough to be a “good” parent if generations of your ancestors were blocked from becoming “good” parents. People are fundamentally good; everyone wants to be “good” parents. There are just fewer obstacles to being “good” parents for some people.

You are naive if you think VMPI wasn’t removing accelerated paths. I assume you knew as much and are just playing word games.

Nope. Not tough to stay with the mother or father of your child and choose to raise that child because something that happened to your grandparents. Tough to take personal responsibility to do what’s right. I wonder if Va schools are teaching the importance of two parent households, maybe that should be part of the equity model if it isn’t already.

It was not removing accelerated paths. It always included calculus and IB as options which are accelerated paths.

You don’t know what’s in the VA FLA curriculum? You sound like an external agitator. A privileged, racist external agitator.

Yep you don’t know what was happening in elementary schools in FCPS.

I’m surprised it took you this long to call someone racist. Probably held it as long as you could. Do you feel better? Good. I’m not racist or privileged.

And This doesn’t change the fact that people are abandoning their children and equity measures in va schools will not fix this. Personal responsibility, regardless of race, is always an answer.

VMPI wasn’t removing advanced math/accelerated paths.

Interesting that you are self-aware enough to recognize that your comments are racist - and you are ok with that.

VMPI was removing accelerated math paths.

Nope just responding to the accusation above. My comments just point out that abandoning children produces bad outcomes for children, regardless of race. The fundamental difference is where we lay blame on this tragedy. I blame the people abandoning the children.

VMPI was not removing advanced math/acceleration. Stop lying.

If parents were never given the tools to be better parents because of systemic racism then don’t fault them fully. We, the US, has a hand in the poor outcomes. We should collectively take some responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

So focus on the ones who struggle. Then put the kids who already know the material in a separate class. One teacher teaches the advanced kids at their level. Another teacher teaches the struggling kids at their level.

Yes! This is how it used to be done.

I feel like now though, the disruptive kids are a greater burden on the classroom than the struggling kids. Teachers don't mind the slower kids who need extra help. Kids who are throwing things, distracting everyone, and tantruming? It's very difficult to teach and learn with that going on.

Not every family has the means to get a $3k assessment to diagnose behavioral issues. Or to get necessary therapies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

That’s the consequence of poor decision making.

The child has no say in that.

Yep it’s unfortunate. But punishing my kid for the sins of their parents doesn’t fix that problem. Bottom line is that schools can’t fix shitty parents.

Single parent \= “shitty parent”

Especially considering the parent who is the “single parent” is the one who stepped up to the plate.

Agreed, but one of the two parents probably is.

That’s not to say that divorced/unwed parents can’t successfully raise a child to not need equitable measures. It for sure happens.

This. One of the parent is the shitty parent. This is especially true in the poor black communities where many fathers are incarcerated. Those that are not, many abandon their responsibilities to their kid and could care less. I have a good friend in this situation but she is lucky because she has support from her family and they are helping to raise him. These kids have no strong father figures at all.

The single moms with no support are working to support the family so no one is at home watching the kids. They then get into trouble, hang out with the wrong crowd, etc….

The other issue is that some households with 2 parents, they just don’t give a sh’t about the kids and are just unfit to be parents. Ask a teacher in a title 1 school about that and they can easily tell you the percentages and you would be surprised.

Those kids are getting in trouble because police and school administrators are racist. It's not their fault. If you look at arrest and incarceration rates, black males are way overrepresented.

So they are being framed?

NP. There are multiple components to the systemic racism that leads to higher incarceration rates.

Redlining
Lack of generational wealth
Untreated learning disabilities
Harsher consequences at school
Lack of knowledge about education/college
Bias in hiring
Bias in arrests
Harsher sentencing

It’s pretty easy for a kid to make a few mistakes when they are young and then never be able to pull themselves out of that hole.

Where is the personal responsibility?

Generational wealth - shitty parents, a whole bunch of them but realistically, there are tons of normal everyday middle class Americans of all colors without generational wealth.
Untreated learning disabilities - shitty parents
Lack of knowledge about college - shitty parents
Bias in arrests, sentencing - don’t care, stop committing crimes. This isn’t rocket science
Bias in hiring - racist quota systems set up in many institutions now. But remaining bias may also exist because all of the above is true.

So how does removing advanced math/tracking fix any of that? The kids who have bad parents and/or learning disabilities will still get as good an education as the school system is capable of giving. Systemic discrimination of kids with greater learning capabilities seems like a stupid answer to problems created by perceived systemic racism.

That’s not happening.

But go ahead and pretend like systemic racism isn’t happening.

It is with ELA if not with math.

By the way, systemic racism isn't something that actively or consciously ccurs. It is something that is inherently and subconsciously present. Perhaps eliminating honors ELA is counter productive.

It can also be active/conscious - such as redlining.

You're conflating two different things. The historical practice of redlining wasn't systemic racism. It was classic overt and intentional racism. The unintentional secondary and lingering effects of that historical act are what is covered by systemic racism. To whit, overtly and intentially racist housing and mortgage policies from the 50s and 60s led to a structural problem whereby negative consequences became self-propelling even though the overtly racist policies and practices were eliminated. In other words some of the racism became subconsciously embedded in the system. The nuances and subtleties of this distinction are important to understand because the potential remedies for the two issues are different. Subtleties and nuance are two of the things developed in honors ELA. The big irony is that the very concept of systemic racism is something that requires higher level advanced ELA to understand and yet honors ELA is one of the first casualties of the drive to eliminate structural inequality.

The irony of your last comment is rich.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8688641/
Systemic racism is said to occur when racially unequal opportunities and outcomes are inbuilt or intrinsic to the operation of a society’s structures. Simply put, systemic racism refers to the processes and outcomes of racial inequality and inequity in life opportunities and treatment. Systemic racism permeates a society’s (a) institutional structures (practices, policies, climate), (b) social structures (state/federal programs, laws, culture), (c) individual mental structures (e.g., learning, memory, attitudes, beliefs, values), and (d) everyday interaction patterns (norms, scripts, habits). Systemic racism not only operates at multiple levels, it can emerge with or without animus or intention to harm and with or without awareness of its existence. Its power derives from its being integrated into a unified system of racial differentiation and discrimination that creates, governs, and adjudicates opportunities and outcomes across generations. Racism represents the biases of the powerful (Jones, 1971), as the biases of the powerless have little consequence (Fiske, 1993).1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

Wow. If effect, the goal of equity will be achieved when the higher-SES children leave the public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

That’s the consequence of poor decision making.

The child has no say in that.

Yep it’s unfortunate. But punishing my kid for the sins of their parents doesn’t fix that problem. Bottom line is that schools can’t fix shitty parents.

Single parent \= “shitty parent”

Especially considering the parent who is the “single parent” is the one who stepped up to the plate.

Agreed, but one of the two parents probably is.

That’s not to say that divorced/unwed parents can’t successfully raise a child to not need equitable measures. It for sure happens.

This. One of the parent is the shitty parent. This is especially true in the poor black communities where many fathers are incarcerated. Those that are not, many abandon their responsibilities to their kid and could care less. I have a good friend in this situation but she is lucky because she has support from her family and they are helping to raise him. These kids have no strong father figures at all.

The single moms with no support are working to support the family so no one is at home watching the kids. They then get into trouble, hang out with the wrong crowd, etc….

The other issue is that some households with 2 parents, they just don’t give a sh’t about the kids and are just unfit to be parents. Ask a teacher in a title 1 school about that and they can easily tell you the percentages and you would be surprised.

Those kids are getting in trouble because police and school administrators are racist. It's not their fault. If you look at arrest and incarceration rates, black males are way overrepresented.

So they are being framed?

NP. There are multiple components to the systemic racism that leads to higher incarceration rates.

Redlining
Lack of generational wealth
Untreated learning disabilities
Harsher consequences at school
Lack of knowledge about education/college
Bias in hiring
Bias in arrests
Harsher sentencing

It’s pretty easy for a kid to make a few mistakes when they are young and then never be able to pull themselves out of that hole.

Where is the personal responsibility?

Generational wealth - shitty parents, a whole bunch of them but realistically, there are tons of normal everyday middle class Americans of all colors without generational wealth.
Untreated learning disabilities - shitty parents
Lack of knowledge about college - shitty parents
Bias in arrests, sentencing - don’t care, stop committing crimes. This isn’t rocket science
Bias in hiring - racist quota systems set up in many institutions now. But remaining bias may also exist because all of the above is true.

So how does removing advanced math/tracking fix any of that? The kids who have bad parents and/or learning disabilities will still get as good an education as the school system is capable of giving. Systemic discrimination of kids with greater learning capabilities seems like a stupid answer to problems created by perceived systemic racism.

That’s not happening.

But go ahead and pretend like systemic racism isn’t happening.

It is with ELA if not with math.

By the way, systemic racism isn't something that actively or consciously ccurs. It is something that is inherently and subconsciously present. Perhaps eliminating honors ELA is counter productive.

It can also be active/conscious - such as redlining.

You're conflating two different things. The historical practice of redlining wasn't systemic racism. It was classic overt and intentional racism. The unintentional secondary and lingering effects of that historical act are what is covered by systemic racism. To whit, overtly and intentially racist housing and mortgage policies from the 50s and 60s led to a structural problem whereby negative consequences became self-propelling even though the overtly racist policies and practices were eliminated. In other words some of the racism became subconsciously embedded in the system. The nuances and subtleties of this distinction are important to understand because the potential remedies for the two issues are different. Subtleties and nuance are two of the things developed in honors ELA. The big irony is that the very concept of systemic racism is something that requires higher level advanced ELA to understand and yet honors ELA is one of the first casualties of the drive to eliminate structural inequality.

The irony of your last comment is rich.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8688641/
Systemic racism is said to occur when racially unequal opportunities and outcomes are inbuilt or intrinsic to the operation of a society’s structures. Simply put, systemic racism refers to the processes and outcomes of racial inequality and inequity in life opportunities and treatment. Systemic racism permeates a society’s (a) institutional structures (practices, policies, climate), (b) social structures (state/federal programs, laws, culture), (c) individual mental structures (e.g., learning, memory, attitudes, beliefs, values), and (d) everyday interaction patterns (norms, scripts, habits). Systemic racism not only operates at multiple levels, it can emerge with or without animus or intention to harm and with or without awareness of its existence. Its power derives from its being integrated into a unified system of racial differentiation and discrimination that creates, governs, and adjudicates opportunities and outcomes across generations. Racism represents the biases of the powerful (Jones, 1971), as the biases of the powerless have little consequence (Fiske, 1993).1

Yes it is. You really should read it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

Yes, and the vast majority of those women made choices that resulted in that situation. And they then make choices that make that situation permanent. But unless you support the state taking those kids and putting them in foster care, the mothers have made choices that will impact their children's entire lives, despite the best efforts of schools. BTW - the statistic showing children in single parent homes by race exactly mirrors academic performance by race.

+1. Poor choices have consequences, especially if it involves having a child.

Funny how the woman is always blamed.

It takes 2 to tangle yes but you can’t deny all these teenage single mothers who then drop out of school. Or women who have multiple children all with different fathers of which none are around.

Don’t have sex or use birth control, don’t have a kid until you are done with school. Don’t have a kid until you can at least support yourself and have some savings. Don’t have a kid unless you have a partner who also wants to have a child and you are sure will stick around to help raise that child.

Above are all poor choices and are very prevalent choices in some communities.

We should make long-acting reversible contraception free and very accessible (IUD or implant). Or, even better, mandatory vasectomies.

I think we should have cash incentives for anyone who gets an IUD. All women are eligible for a check from the fed government if they elect to get one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

Wow. If effect, the goal of equity will be achieved when the higher-SES children leave the public schools.

Which then leads to greater unequal outcomes and further perpetuates power imbalances. The circle gets completed and the cycle renews itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This argument falls apart when you look at why the kid is advanced and consider limited resources.

Your kid is most likely more “advanced” because of a disproportional distribution of limited resources from the the start of his or her life. They are advanced because they had more *advantages* than other children. Not because they are necessarily brighter or smarter. Your kid was born on third and you think he hit a triple. And so long as the system continues to set up these inequities in perpetuity, things won’t get better for the kid who keeps striking out.

Nope, never said my kid hit a triple. The fact remains that for a huge list of reasons some kids have a leg-up whether due to intelligence, race, or simply opportunity and right now school systems like FCPS and APS are not giving them what they equitably need because yes it does mean that for the most part the gap will never close.

I remember reading somewhere when my kids were little that a child whose parents read to them consistently from infancy had been exposed to literally hundreds of thousands more words by K than a child whose parents did not do so. Some show up reading early chapter books, other kids don't even know all their letters. Guess what, those kids aren't getting reading groups with the same amount of time and instruction during the week that meet them where they are.

That's not equity no matter how much you want it to be. You're trying to fix societal inequity by dumbing down the classroom.

No one is dumbing down the classroom. That’s a trope. The purpose of public education, though, is to meet a baseline for an educated population. So naturally, the focus will be on those who struggle. This was articulated very clearly in “No child left behind.” (The rhetoric, not the policy). It exists as a public good. You are rent seeking for private goods — but public education has no obligation to help further advance the advanced student — the truly gifted and talented are endlessly curious and seek learning opportunities outside the classroom anyway, and the high-achiever has already cleared the baseline. As one school superintendent once explained, private school is a good option. But that isn’t the purpose of public education and never had been.

So focus on the ones who struggle. Then put the kids who already know the material in a separate class. One teacher teaches the advanced kids at their level. Another teacher teaches the struggling kids at their level.

Well, no. That would be inequitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot on DCUM (who have generational wealth and are into all the wordsmith theory going on nowadays) don't realize that the old system did work to raise people up from the bottom if you had a strong support system.

I grew up lower middle class. My parents (yes, I had an involved father) instilled in me a hard work ethic and stressed that only through education would I make more money than them. I didn't have tutors, but I was in honors, ignored all the others trying to get me to skip school in high school, got good grades and now am part of the upper 10%. My children have had an easier start than I did.

If there isn't familial support, the equity steps taken won't matter except on paper by bringing people like my children down.

You were privileged to grow up in a 2-parent household.

For some races, 69% of kids are born to unwed mothers:
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

Yes, and the vast majority of those women made choices that resulted in that situation. And they then make choices that make that situation permanent. But unless you support the state taking those kids and putting them in foster care, the mothers have made choices that will impact their children's entire lives, despite the best efforts of schools. BTW - the statistic showing children in single parent homes by race exactly mirrors academic performance by race.

+1. Poor choices have consequences, especially if it involves having a child.

Funny how the woman is always blamed.

It takes 2 to tangle yes but you can’t deny all these teenage single mothers who then drop out of school. Or women who have multiple children all with different fathers of which none are around.

Don’t have sex or use birth control, don’t have a kid until you are done with school. Don’t have a kid until you can at least support yourself and have some savings. Don’t have a kid unless you have a partner who also wants to have a child and you are sure will stick around to help raise that child.

Above are all poor choices and are very prevalent choices in some communities.

Meant if you don’t do above then you are making poor choices…

Very easy for you to say.

Increasing access to sex education, abortion and long-term contraception pays dividends down the road.

Those access are available with planned parenthood and health clinics. Not an excuse.